colonies in space

[franktalk]

I don't know what you mean. Anyway, a guy says it's a myth NASA had anything to do with microcircuits directly.
http://movementarian.com/2006/09/11/...id-not-invent/
NASA could be said to have increased the demand for small electronics, I suppose, but I do believe the microcircuit would have enventuated anyway, NASA or no NASA.

I don't have much time to go through the H. book and see where it needs to be updated. I do wish Franktalk would have more solid stuff upon which to pontificate.

Having a guy as a source is hard to overcome. But if you wish to have quotes from people who worked in the days of the apollo missions tell the story of who financed the first microcircuit you could read this.

http://www.techworld.com.au/article/...hanged_history

But then again the (guy) who won the nobel prize for the technology may not be a good reference.

[Augustine2004]

Correlation does not prove causation. Increasing the demand for something is not the same as creating it. Putting up dollars might be cited as a factor, but then it has to be proved that the thing couldn't have been possible otherwise. Development in a few fields might have been accelerated, but was overall technological development accelerated?

Let's not argue this any more please. If you wish, start a new thread, but I will not subscribe.

[Augustine2004]

No reason for posting this link
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...Singapore.html
except to inspire y'all to think big. To infinity and beyond!

[Augustine2004]

I had not thought about mid-ocean partial-vacuum tubes anchored to the ocean floor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vactrain
My newspaper ran an article by ‘Marshall Brain Howstuffworks.com’ Unfortunately, that’s all the reference. Search for ‘vactrain’ and you get a link to a podcast.

A place north of Namatanai on New Ireland, New Guinea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namatanai
could be a spaceport. Load the start of the vacuum tube with a payload. The tube goes into the water eventually, but curves up at the end. The ramjet-rocket-payload combo does not have to move fast, just 600 mph by the time the ramjet is ready to exit the tube’s exit terminus, which sticks out of the ocean.

[Augustine2004]

Here's a problem that we may have to consider
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/s...year-olds.html

[franktalk]

Escape vel 7 miles per sec. Equals 36960 feet per second. If one accelerates at two g's 64 ft/sec^2 then in 577 seconds in a straight vacuum tube one could be launched into space. The avg vel would be 7/2 = 3.5 mps. So the tube would be 2021 miles long and perfectly straight. A magnetic drive would be best. It is very easy to imagine this sling shot.

I hope I did the math right.

For an orbit it would be slower. Then the space craft could enter another sling shot in space and be accelerated to near speed of light.

120,000 miles second (example) then a tube 120,000 x 160 ( tube length for 1 mile per sec at two g's) = 19.2 million miles long. Not likely. It is 92 million miles to the sun. But it is possible.

If the tube followed the curve of the earth the centripetal forces would be.

F= mv^2/r for a man 200 lbs at 36960 ft/sec and radius of earth at 20.8 million feet is 13000 lbs if I did the math right. So the tube must be straight.

[Augustine2004]

The tube is only to get the ramjet part working, at around 800 kph. Once launched, the ramjet part accelerates at 1 g? and goes to 90km? Then the rocket part (not the payload which may include manuevering rockets) takes over.

[franktalk]

The tube is only to get the ramjet part working, at around 800 kph. Once launched, the ramjet part accelerates at 1 g? and goes to 90km? Then the rocket part (not the payload which may include manuevering rockets) takes over.

That requires fuel to be used on the ship. If the tube is magnetic drive all the way then the payload can be more. A deceleration tube can be placed in orbit and run from gathered light energy. No fuel at all. So up and down can be driven by off ship energy. The deceleration tube will get an opposite force each time it is used. The solar wind can be used to reset its speed.

[Augustine2004]

* Gasp * :gasp: You mean a tube that runs up all the way to low orbit level and a tube that runs down to land? Wow. That's thinking big, all right.

[Augustine2004]

The up tube and the down tube could be linked in a double-helix ladder structure like the DNA molecule. Not only that, but the ‘rungs’ could serve as residential areas and commercial spaces as well. Maybe a billion people could live quite comfortably in such a structure, with the additional benefit of easy access to outer space.

[franktalk]

* Gasp * :gasp: You mean a tube that runs up all the way to low orbit level and a tube that runs down to land? Wow. That's thinking big, all right.

No, a short tube so the ship would go into re-entry.

The launch tube could be curved in the beginning but as the speed increased making the centripetal forces to great it would have to be straight. If you could handle a 4 g acceleration then the tube would be half as long.

[Augustine2004]

To maintain the partial vacuum inside the tube, its low end would need an air-tight gate that opens and closes quickly, but I guess it’s doable. Do I understand correctly that the tube will have its own power generation? Then the deorbiting ships won’t need to expend much energy to deorbit. In fact, the tube could do power-regenerating braking on the ships (maybe that’s what you already said).

[franktalk]

To maintain the partial vacuum inside the tube, its low end would need an air-tight gate that opens and closes quickly, but I guess it’s doable. Do I understand correctly that the tube will have its own power generation? Then the deorbiting ships won’t need to expend much energy to deorbit. In fact, the tube could do power-regenerating braking on the ships (maybe that’s what you already said).

I am trying to describe a way to get massive amounts of mass into space and back. Right now fuel takes up a bunch of the mass of the ship. Then one has to balance fuel , mass , objectives. If we can find a way to remove the on board fuel requirements and mass limitations by using ground or space energy then the ships would be nothing more than barges. The fancy control and energy source would be off ship and could operate over and over. In fact with magnetic drive one could have several ships in the tube at the same time. One could launch hundreds of ships a day. To seal the end would require some kind of membrane or door that recovered the end quickly so the vacuum would not be lost.

If we made two launch tubes in opposite directions then the deceleration tube could just fire one direction for one ship and the other direction for a second ship. This would keep the deceleration tube stable (within a small oscillation). (added by edit - this would not work, incompatible orbits)

Using this method we could build a giant ship in space that would spin for artificial gravity.

The release end of the tube would have to be pretty high up. If the release was in the lower atmosphere then the ship would go from aceleration to deceleration in an instant the moment the ship left the tube. The shock from the forces would be real bad. I could calculate how high up the end would have to be. A seat of the pants guess is 60,000 feet. I could be way off.

[Augustine2004]

The SR-71 ('air-breathing') can fly at 26km
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird
I guess you need to go higher, to more than 30km. But, the speed on leaving the tube has just to match the orbital speed, as long as the orbit is not too unstable due to air friction.

The up tube can have a 'lock' chamber. Put stuff in it, pump out the air, and then open the inner door of the chamber.

Certainly the downloads and the uploads can be scheduled together so that the download energy is fed timely enough into the uploads.

Also, there may be enough junk we've put into orbit (e.g., satellites that need to be replaced or repaired) . . .

[franktalk]

The SR-71 ('air-breathing') can fly at 26km
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird
I guess you need to go higher, to more than 30km. But, the speed on leaving the tube has just to match the orbital speed, as long as the orbit is not too unstable due to air friction.

The up tube can have a 'lock' chamber. Put stuff in it, pump out the air, and then open the inner door of the chamber.

Certainly the downloads and the uploads can be scheduled together so that the download energy is fed timely enough into the uploads.

Also, there may be enough junk we've put into orbit (e.g., satellites that need to be replaced or repaired) . . .

In the upload tube the drive can be shut off before the ship gets to the end of the tube so when the ship experiences the air friction it is a single transition. Also orbital velocity is only 4.28 m/sec instead of 7 m/sec. This means that the tube can be shorter. 1000 miles @ 4 g for a 7 m/ sec vel. So 1000 x (4.28/7) = 611 miles long approx. Getting better.